Happy Valentine’s Day! Hope everyone has a lovely day no matter what you are doing. What shall we look at from Toy Fair today? Let’s start off with potatoes, because when I think of this romantic holiday, I think of potatoes.

Mr. Potato Head

I was going to hold off on these until I got more images and information from Hasbro, but I was not able to get a Press appointment to meet with them. One of the problems I found being a “Press Noob”. Didn’t know that you needed to schedule appointments with the major companies before going. If you don’t, you are taking a shot in the dark. Anyways, since Hasbro is out of the question, I figured that I would share these instead, from Mr. Potato Head licencee PPW Toys.

Overall, the brand of Mr. Potato Head is, as a whole, moving into two directions, according to PPW. First of all, he will always be a “leaner” spud now. I personally prefer the fatter look, which is the original, classic look. But hey, these are new times we live in. Also, they are diverging away from clamshall packaging and going to basically all box packaging. This is music to my ears as a collector since displaying in clamshell looks cluttered and you can easily rebox your collectibles when you want to store them. Not the same thing can be said for clamshell.

Also, I did not get any images of them yet, but Sports Spuds will expand more into the MLB, NFL, and NHL leagues.

Now onto the images I do have:

“Blue Hawaii” Elvis(left) will be released in August around the anniversary of the singer’s death. Pictured with Elvis ’68.

The Three Stooges. The spuds look better than the upcoming film.

Star Trek. “Where no spud has gone before.”

KISS. These kind of creep me out.

Wizard of Oz. This 4pk is currently available.

The Wicked Witch of the West will be sold separately and will be available this year.

The Dark Knight Rises Mr. Potato Head will be released in the fall to tie into the movie.

Mezco

Yesterday, I mentioned looking at stuff from Diamond. However, Diamond does have a showroom on the floor that I briefly passed thru Sunday but plan on going back to tomorrow. I want to get more information on some of those things for you guys, so I will post about them later on in the week. Instead, I will share some things from Mezco. Note: most of this is ‘Pending Final Approval’.

Batman: The Dark Knight

Featuring a combination of Mez-itz & Mini Mez-itz, I really like their collectibles for what is sure to be a blockbuster smash this year. I thumbnailed all of the photos, a combination of stuff that was live and stuff from the catalog. I also threw in the regular DC stuff in here for good measure.

Thundercats

These Mega Deluxe Scale Action Figures look AMAZING! Featured in this set are Lion-o, Mumm-Ra, and Panthro, my personal favorite.

Mumm-Ra & Lion-o

Panthro

Other

Here are some thumbnailed pictures of other stuff that Mezco is coming out with this year. I especially like the Earthworm Jim figure and the Spongebob Squarepants line.

Jim Henson & Muppet Related Goodness

The last thing I want to share with you today are some things found around Toy Fair that relate themselves to the Muppets or, more importantly, Jim Henson.

Manhattan Toy has a whole line of Fraggle Rock merchandise, including puppets, plush, & bobbleheads.

TOMY

TOMY has toys inspired by not one, but two, Jim Henson properties. First up are children’s sleep aids and DVDs from Jim Henson’s Pajanimals, which airs on PBS Sprout. These are created and geared towards making children able to sleep on their own and not be afraid of the dark, noises, etc.

Apparently, there is also a show called Jim Henson’s Dinosaur Train, a show that combines dinosaurs and, well, trains. Yeah, it’s about that simple. Last year, TOMY released some basic dinosaurs from the series. This year, they are releasing the new Interactive wave. They are wireless and will interact with one another if they are next to one another when activated. I saw them in action and it was pretty cool, when they worked. TOMY, maker of the Thomas the Tank and Chuggington lines, also releases train sets of this set. NOTE: Chuggington is advancing the realm of children’s train sets by making kids able to build UP in addition to OUT. In fact, their entryways to their area were built out of this interlocking vertical tracking. Looked pretty cool if you have kids into those trains.

Puppet Heap Workshop

Lastly, I stopped by and talked to Paul Andrejco, Jean Marie Keevins, and Tony Grosso of Puppet Heap Workshop. Never heard of Puppet Heap? SHAME ON YOU! Why? Well, they create puppets and, more importantly, these puppets:

Yup, THE Muppets. They built all of the Muppets for last year’s movie. Paul used to work for Henson. When they were looking for a company to built puppets for them, Paul and his puppet company were brought in. However, they do not just make puppets for Disney. They also have a band of crazy puppets that I have been a fan of for years.

If you have never seen their videos, I highly suggest that you do. I was introduced to the work of Puppet Heap during my Puppetry class in the Spring of 2010 (I am now in my second year of being an assistant in the course, I enjoy puppetry so much). The video I saw was “Omar’s Mother”, which was and still is required viewing in the class. Why? It is awesome. Yup, that about sums it up. Check it out below.

Puppet Heap just released last year there own line of hand puppets based on some of their characters. I am thrilled to own the Constable and I gave Cabot, the Puppetry professor, Toby the Dog. Paul is hoping that Omar will be released in the future (I would LOVE that), and they are creating a line of Wizard of Oz puppets to debut in 2014 for the 75th Anniversary of the movie.

On a side note, they were thrilled that “Omar’s Mother” is required viewing in the Puppetry class. Also, Paul and I now have a secret handshake…. by accident. :P

Well, that be all for today. What will tomorrow hold in store? Come back to find out, as I will be back to Toy Fair again tomorrow. :)

Thank you so much for all the Mr Potato Head news. I have been a collector since I was small. And my friends have now started indulging me as well. I love the Wizard of Oz Series and the Batman. I will have to get my hands on those.